Letter to the Editor: Capital punishment isn’t what it once was

I have a question. What ever happened to capital punishment? For example, a man or woman goes into a crowded theater. He or she pulls out a weapon and slaughters or wounds 40-50 innocent men, women and children. Ever heard of that happening?

The perpetrator, for lack of a more appropriate word, is taken into custody. The long suffering taxpayers of this county are forced to pay for its lawyer – it refers to the thing that would commit such a crime against all that is right and just. The lawyer tries to give it a proper defense, although what that would be I cannot fathom; maybe the concession stand forgot to put butter on “its” popcorn.

The jury actually finds the blackguard guilty of, let’s say, 47 counts of murder and 51 counts of assault with intent to commit murder. The judge sentences it to suffer the pains of death by lethal injection. What happens then? Then the perpetrator disappears into the maze of the legal system for 10-18 years.

Most of the people, who were not at the scene of the violation against nature, forget. The exception is the children who have to grow up without their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, the parents of the people who died in a horrific bloodbath and those people who were deprived of a normal life by the horrible, bloody, whirlwind of blood, ear-piercing screams and senseless violence they were forced to witness. The aforementioned tragedy of awfulness would be irrevocably burned into a survivor’s consciousness for the rest of his or her life on this planet.

To make a long ugly picture even uglier, what happens to the it that caused the whole extremely ugly mess?

In the olden days – oh no, we can’t go back to those horrible days – the perpetrator would have been sentenced to a gallows with a short rope and a long drop, and then shot. But no, your honor, that would be just too cruel.

All right the it who fired the gun, depriving innocent people of life and limb, was found guilty more than once in a court of law, then the appeals court, then the state Supreme Court and probably the U.S Supreme Court, and now he will have to answer for the misdeeds by being subjected to lethal injection until it is dead.

Would you like to read what happens next? The court, enforcing the law of this land in which we live or the prison in which the perpetrator has been fed and clothed for these many years, schedules the execution usually at midnight if I remember correctly. Then some quasi-liberal quasi-organization holds a big protest against capital punishment. Why? Oh, some trumped-up excuse like, let’s see, the administrator of the lethal dose forgot to swab an arm with alcohol before he administered the lethal injection. My word. That’s so cruel. Or the pharmaceutical company who manufactures the lethal drug lost its license to manufacture the lethal drug. Oh well, use your imagination. That’s no doubt what the ACLU or similar bunch had to do to come up with a lame excuse – did I say trumped-up before?

At the risk of losing any reader who might still be hanging in there, let’s look at what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome way back in 50-something AD, by inspiration of Almighty God, I might add, and I quote verse 1 chapter 13 says, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.” And in Paul’s day, the governing authorities were Roman soldiers carrying two-edged swords and Roman emperors who reportedly just loved a good afternoon contest between African lions and Christians in the old coliseum in Rome. What was that like? It was probably somewhat like ice hockey, minus the ice and the puck.

But I digress. In Romans, chapter 13 verse 4, Paul wrote by inspiration, “But if you do evil, be afraid; for he (the ruler) does not bear the word in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” Did you notice that word Paul, God’s evangelist to the Gentiles, used? He wrote the words execute and sword in the same sentence.

Reckon what Paul meant by that, or what was the context of that remark? Well, I’m just an old country boy, but to me it says obey the law, don’t shoot at the police and if you run afoul of the authorities by a heinous crime, be prepared to suffer the consequences. Boys, get out old sparky and give this person the reserved seat.

Well, in spite of my levity in an inappropriate time, you get the gist of my opinion. If lethal injection is just too cruel for the perpetrators of heinous crimes, I would recommend either public hanging or two-edged swords, whichever will best deter further crimes.